NFL betting: Do the Rams have a home-field advantage in the Super Bowl?

For 54 years, the Super Bowl was never played at the home stadium of a team participating in the game. Now, it's happened in back-to-back years for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Los Angeles Rams.

Last year, we saw the Buccaneers and Tom Brady win the Super Bowl at Raymond James Stadium by a score of 31-9 despite being a 3-point underdog against the Kansas City Chiefs.

This season, the sparkling new SoFi Stadium will host the Super Bowl. The stadium hosts the Rams and the Los Angeles Chargers. Naturally, the Rams will play in the Super Bowl this season. Los Angeles is a 4.5-point favorite over the Cincinnati Bengals.

The betting angle for home-field advantage

For many years, oddsmakers and NFL bettors have determined that home-field advantage is worth about 3 points to the betting spread. Some stadiums with rowdier fanbases or in colder climates might have a tad larger home-field advantage. Other teams with less passionate fanbases or in areas where weather isn't a concern have slightly smaller home-field advantages. But by and large, on average, we've assigned three points as a home-field advantage for many years.

Over recent seasons, many have questioned whether three points is too much for home-field advantage. This past regular season, road teams went 140-129-3 against the spread. In the playoffs, home teams are a pedestrian 7-5 straight up and 6-6 against the spread.

It's safe to say nobody is assigning 3 points for home-field advantage to the Rams in this Super Bowl. The question becomes just how much of an advantage do they have?

This season, the Rams are 7-3 straight up at home but just 5-5 against the spread.

In Week 18 and just last week in the conference championship, the Rams had to take extreme measures to make sure the fans of the San Francisco 49ers didn't take over their home stadium. With the Rams only recently coming to Los Angeles and the general perception that Los Angeles residents don't care much about the Rams, their home-field advantage is already one of the worst in the league.

Ticket sales work differently for the Super Bowl. A certain percentage is designated to fans of the Rams and Bengals while the rest are released through various different avenues. Usually, the Super Bowl crowd in attendance consists of many corporate people or celebrities. These people aren't usually the type to get on their feet and start yelling in order to try and force a false start when their team is on defense.

On the other side, the Cincinnati Bengals have been money to their backers on the road. Cincinnati is 7-3 straight up and 8-2 against the spread this season away from Paul Brown Stadium. This includes a perfect 2-0 record in the playoffs, winning both road games as an underdog.

So is there no home-field advantage?

At first glance, it might seem like the Rams shouldn't get any bump for playing on their home field. However, it's hard to say that certainly.

We saw last year what happened with the Buccaneers playing on their home field. They dominated the Chiefs and it was never a game. It's absolutely impossible to say what kind of impact home-field advantage had in that game, but it is a data point and it's never smart to ignore a data point.

This season, the Rams are 7-3 at home and 8-2 on the road. They certainly aren't a team that performs significantly better on their home field. From the other side, the Bengals obviously aren't rattled when they're away from Cincinnati, as shown by their 7-3 road record.

The benefits for the home team are obvious. There's no travel required. Nobody likes traveling, but these pro teams are flying on chartered planes with luxury accommodations when on the road. They're staying in top-of-the-line hotels with awesome food options and access to the greatest facilities in the world.

The home team has the benefit of staying in their own homes and sleeping in their own beds, but they also might deal with more distractions from friends and family and fans. The road team gets to tune all of that stuff out with the "business trip" mentality. In other sports, we've seen home teams stay in hotels in an attempt to tune all that extra stuff out.

It's worth noting that the Bengals are actually the home team in this matchup as it pertains to NFL bookkeeping. This means they'll likely get access to the Rams' home locker room and other minor perks like that.

Personally, I'd give the Rams about a half-point bump as a home-field advantage here. It's hard to say that there is zero advantage to playing in your own city, but it's also hard to act like it will make a significant difference. A half point feels about right. The Rams are currently 4.5-point favorites.